Washington, March 22, 1934.

TWO ancient principles of justice, to old that they have seemed to be part of our conception of fair dealing from time immemorial, have been rewritten by the Roosevelt revolution.

One is that a hearing is not necessary before a conviction is ordered because the State meaning the Government- can, if it desires, be judge, jury and prosecutor.

The other is that a man making an agreement with the government can be ordered under threat of punishment to agree in advance that he will give his consent to any rule, regulation or decree which may in the wisdom of the government be decided is good for him or for business in general or society as a whole.

These may sound like extreme statements of what the administration is doing, but there are enough instances now to indicate that there is behind the Roosevelt administration a group of young lawyers who have found out ways and means of putting into the hidden phrases legislation powers that give the state an authority of the widest scope.

The first evidence, of course, came when the printing codes were under discussion and when it was feared that one regulation, whereby signers were to agree in advance to abide by any future regulations, meant they were in effect waving their constitutional rights. The President announced in his executive order that a man "does not consent to what he does not consent to." It was insisted that constitutional rights could not be forfeited accidentally.

But there are lawyers whose study of the precedents convinced them that while Mr. Roosevelt himself may have the best intentions, his subordinates can apply pressure by using these very ambiguous sections of codes, and it will be the courts and not the President who will read what the law has said. For this new way of requiring consent in advance is not only written into the National Industrial Recovery Act but it is being inserted in many new legislative proposals that have come out since the President gave his assurance to the signers of the Graphic Art or Printing codes.

Thus in the new Stock Exchange bill it is made obligatory for any issue of securities not only to comply but to force compliance by its officers, directors, and stockholders with all provisions of the proposed law and "with the rules and regulations made or to be made by the Frederal Trade Commission.'"

The National Industrial Recovery Act requires all signers of codes--and this is not the NRA speaking but the language of the law itself--to agree to comply with various wage and hour rules and "with other conditions of employment, approved or prescribed by the President," which, of course, means the NRA and its various officials. If, therefore, after weeks or months of discussion a code is written and accepted by an industry and a man goes home thinking his problems are settled, he may wake up some day and find: an executive order completely changing everything agreed upon because the law says the President "may, from time to time, cancel or modify any order, approval, license, rule or regulation under this act."

Recently the NRA has been inserting in addition in a number of codes the following power: "and specifically, but without limitation to the right of the President to cancel or modify his approval of this code, or any conditions imposed by him upon his approval thereof."

In another code drafted by the NRA itself appears the following provision: "subject to such rules and regulations as may be issued by the administrator, etc."

The legal staff of the NRA does not give written opinions as to what all these vague clauses mean but usually says it is a good thing to have them in the codes. Business men are left bewildered and do not know from one day to another what the legal position is unless they go to the courts. Most of them dislike to do this because withdrawal of the Blue Eagle may follow any action in opposition to NRA rules or policies.

There are certain cases which have been decided by the courts, moreover, which indicate that once a company submits by consent to the jurisdiction of the federal government it cannot raise constitutional barriers. Thus in the famous packers' consent decree, the packers cannot argue now that some of the provisions of that decree are confiscatory under the constitution. For they have already agreed to abide by the decree of the court.

Just who thought of the novel idea of writing this blanket consent in advance theory into the laws themselves is not generally known, though the authorship is attributed to the so-called "young intellectuals" who came here and introduced into the drafting of laws many ideas which members of Congress accepted in the belief that the President wanted them embodied in the statutes.

The idea that hearings are unnecessary and that the courts cannot be permitted to review some aspects of the new laws is also extraordinary. This attitude came out now only in the refusal to grant the aviation companies a hearing but now in the proposed bill is a threat to punish them if they attempt to sue for damages in the court of claims.

The most amazing of all, however, is that provision which first made its appearance in the Tugwell Food and Drug bill and has been inserted in nearly every New Deal reform legislation every since. It is that an executive department or commission or administrator shall have full power to say finally what are the facts, and no courts of review are permitted to go into the evidence but are specifically ordered to start with the premise that on findings of fact the commission or administrative body's ruling shall be conclusive.

Certainly law and old-fashioned justice are being rewritten, but maybe it all comes under the head of "social revolution."